Page by Tamora Pierce Page A

watching the new squires in the practice courts, eating supper with Lord Wyldon as they looked over prospects. Kel had noticed them the year before, but had not much cared who had come. This year they would take people she knew. Lord Imrah of Legann, a bald, pockmarked man with a hawk’s-beak nose and pale, intelligent eyes, chose Prince Roald as his squire, to everyone’s surprise. In the past the heir had always served his father; it seemed King Jonathan meant to do this as differently as he did everything else.
    Kel also got to see her second oldest brother, Inness, who visited for a few days, before he rode north to the Scanran border. He took Cleon with him. Zahir was chosen as squire by the king. Joren went east with Paxton of Nond. Garvey and Vinson, as well as five other new squires, remained in the palace while Lord Wyldon took the pages out to their summer camp.
    seven
HILL COUNTRY
    The year before, the pages had camped in the Royal Forest. This year the training master took them south and east, into the hilly country that lay between Lake Tirragen and the River Drell. Part of Kel’s sparrow company, eighteen birds in all, came along while the rest stayed at the palace. No one raised an eyebrow at the small birds’ presence: they had followed Kel the previous summer and had proved useful.
    In addition to Sergeant Ezeko, the two Shang warriors, Hakuin Seastone and Eda Bell, rode with them. Kel had the idea that Eda, the Shang Wildcat, was her chaperon, just as she had been the year before. When she mentioned it to the older woman, the Wildcat laughed. “Maybe I just want to get out of the palace for two months,” she said. “I’m a hillwoman, you know. Born and raised just south of Malven, till I ran off to the Shangs.” She grinned, showing teeth like small white pearls. “I’m my lord Wyldon’s local expert.”
    On their first morning away, Kel woke at her usual hour, before sunrise. Picking her way among blanketed forms in search of the latrine, she froze. Jump was curled up beside Lord Wyldon. As if he knew she was goggling at him, the dog opened one eye, wagged his tail twice, and closed his eye again. Kel cursed him silently all the way to the latrine. What if Lord Wyldon suspected the dog was a pet, not just a friendly stray? Instead of her glaive exercises she did some of the unarmed combat dances, combinations of punches, kicks, and rolls. They helped her burn off part of her fear that somehow Lord Wyldon would know Jump was hers and take the dog away.
    At breakfast Neal was the first of her group to notice Lord Wyldon’s companion. He choked.
    “Queenscove, what is the matter with you?” asked Eda Bell.
    Neal managed to point. “Dog.”
    Lord Wyldon looked at the companion to whom he’d been feeding strips of bacon. “This fellow’s been hanging about the yards for months,” he said calmly. “Evidently he’s taken a liking to us. With Daine in residence, it seems few animals are shy about expressing themselves.”
    “Horses too,” said Sergeant Ezeko. “Only reason I think my Dragonfly doesn’t talk to me is because she thinks I’m not smart enough to understand her.”
    “I can’t believe our dog’s toadying to the Stump,” Neal whispered to Kel and Owen as they washed dishes. “I thought Jump was better than that.”
    “I don’t know,” Kel remarked slowly. “It’s hard to hate anyone who likes dogs as much as my lord does.”
    “Jump’s smart. He knows if Lord Wyldon thinks he came to see him, he won’t send him back,” Owen pointed out. “He would if Jump looked to be following one of us.”
    Whatever the dog’s thoughts, he kept up as easily as the sparrows while the pages and teachers rode south. The trees of the Olorun Valley gave way to broad green fields, then to drier country. The riders skirted the edge of the Great Southern Desert, turning east. The Bazhir lived in the desert and made it their own. In the southeastern hill country, people had warred with